Monday, June 12, 2017

Strawberry Shortcake

A lot of us have posted strawberry shortcake recipes. It's a rite of summer. I was inspired by the gorgeous strawberries and the great price at the store. All I needed was a recipe.

My goal was as little work as possible. The whipped cream and macerated strawberries were a given. But I didn't want to spend hours on the shortcake. Ideally the food processor would do most of the work. There are hundreds of recipes online. All have their own little quirks including one that required 4 cups of flour for 4 shortcakes (anyone smacking their dry lips?).

So I set about making my own, loosely based on the shortcake recipe from Treebeard's Restaurant in Houston. Their proportions seemed right to me. However they mix the dough with an electric mixer, which seemed odd to me for shortcake. But if you're making it to serve a lot of people, maybe that's the way to go. I modified that part substantially.

Preheat oven to 400. Place a sheet of parchment paper over a cookie sheet.

Pour the vinegar into the milk and set aside. Place the flour, baking powder, salt, and both sugars in a food processor. Pulse several times to combine. Remove butter from refrigerator and cut lengthwise, turn and cut lengthwise again. Slice seven times (so you have 32 small squares) and add to food processor. Pulse until the flour resembles coarse cornmeal.

Add vanilla to milk. Pour flour mixture into a bowl and pour milk over it. Turn with a spoon until the dough begins to cling together. Guestimate six clumps and gently shape into slightly flattened rounds. Place on parchment paper and bake 15-20 minutes.

Strawberries:

1 pint strawberries
1/4 cup sugar

Wash, hull, and slice the berries. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with sugar. Turn once or twice and let stand until ready to use.

Whipped Cream:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup powered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whip cream until it just begins to take shape. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat until it holds a soft peak but is not too firm.

15 comments:

Our local strawberry are just starting to arrive at our farmer's market so yes, this is a great recipe to celebrate summer. Thanks for the short cut tips with the food processor to make the shortcake portion.

I had strawberry shortcake last week at a local restaurant. In addition to good whipped cream (no cans, please) and nice shortcake (no little angel food cakes from the store, please), they had macerated the berries with some balsamic vinegar, along with the sugar. It really worked well.

Our local farmers market started selling strawberries last week. Should ask my husband to purchase some this week. I will probably use buttermilk instead of milk and vinegar. Haven't had shortcake since last summer. Those strawberries look wonderful.

Wonderful, Krista! This is how the very best Strawberry Shortcake is made. When I make this, we just give ourselves up to it and don't bother with any other kind of dinner. Hey, it's only once a year. Or so.